Title

Team Dynamics

Summary: Ino-Shika-Cho

Let us begin…

She looked different in a green sundress with a wicker basket under her arm. Ino grunted her displeasure as she approached the two that sat facing one another on the hospital bed. Neither one of her teammates realized who she was with her hair loose around her shoulders.

"Shikamaru, go shower. I smell you from the other side of the door." With out a second thought the blonde reached into her basket and threw a plastic bag at the dark eyed boy on the bed.

"Ino," Shikamaru looked up at the girl and shut his mouth. She wore a thin veil of make up to cover up the dark bags under her eyes, Ino hated make up. He glanced at Choji one last time before he slipped off of the bed and slunk into Choji's attached bathroom.

Bright blue bored through her eldest teammate. Ino's anger plated gaze was completely engulfing. Choji fought hard not to squirm under the scrutiny that he was subject of, he felt naked in that hospital gown.

Ino dropped the basket she held into Choji's lap unceremoniously. Then threw herself into the chair on the other side of the room and watched. The silence was deafening in that hospital room.

Choji in attempt to forget Ino's penetrating stare busied him self with the wicker basket. The crinkling of the various layers of wrapping echoed through out the room. Under Layers of Cellophane wrapping he found a six course meal all warm and in large portions.

One of Konoha's best kept secret was Ino's skill in the kitchen. When Ino was little she (not unlike many little girls) had become infatuated with her strong and all-powerful daddy. When he was away on missions and she stayed with the Nara family she absorbed all of what Yoshino did, preparing to be a good wife for her lonely daddy. She was the only one good enough for him and only she was going to marry her daddy and daddy said every good wife could cook. The days of her infatuation had long passed but the remnants of her 'good wife' lessons hadn't.

"Ino… you cooked?"

The blonde 's eyes simply narrowed as she laced her fingers under her chin.

"Ino…"

She turned the other way her back facing her teammate.

"Oh come on don't be that way… I'm sorry…"

She turned her head halfway and looked at him through half lidded blue eyes.

"I tried to get him back reall-" a stinging slap to his face cut off Choji's sentence. His hand reached up to finger the burning flesh on his face.

"You are a moron," Ino's eyes had never looked so cold before. Her hands dropped to her sides where they curled to fist. "I swear if you let another stupid word come out of your mouth I will not be held accountable for what I do. So start eating."

Choji didn't kneed to be told twice, he watched his friend shuffled through the room with wary eyes as he picked at the tempura that she made. She made a satisfied noise once she found the box that held his belongings and began rifling through it. "Um… Ino what are you doing?"

"Shut up and eat. I expect you normal in a month." She emptied the pockets of his pants and shifted through the contents until she found it the little glass pillbox that almost destroyed her perfect little world. She fisted the box tightly.

Hadn't Choji promised that he would never use these little death pills. Choji didn't say much but when he did he was always sincere. So he probably didn't mean to use the pills, maybe it was just a lapse in memory, a life and death situation. No a death or mass death situation. Anyway you put it, it was the fault of those pills, those evil little balls of pepper and herb.

"INO!"

The blonde turned to see Shikamaru in a pair of boxers grabbing for her hand. She looked at the bloody mess that was once her hand shocked that she felt nothing from the shards of glass embedded in her skin. "Ah, I see." With little thought the girl snagged a pair of tweezers from the bedside table and began to dig out the glass with a calculative and eerie calm.

Shikamaru watched as each piece of glass hit the bottom of the waste bin. This wasn't right, Ino was never quiet and calm, she bitched and whined and cared too much for her appearance and was loud and competitive. Shikamaru crinkled his brow, better an over the top reaction than none. "You are aware that that will scar, right?"

"Shut up, Shika." She grumbled before going to the lavatory to wash off the blood. As she rinsed away the blood she looked at her hand. It would hurt and later it world scar maybe even become hard and calloused like she was always afraid it would. But it was her hand.

The one she'd often grasp Choji's own warm and thick hand with. Or brushed back Shikamaru's hairs into a decent tail on days he didn't tie it himself or when ever it came loose. The same hands she used to gut , scale, skin, season and cook her boys meals. They were her hands.

and they wouldn't stop shaking. With fear or relief she didn't know. She still had her hands and she still had her boys.